Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Blueberry, White Chocolate and Cardamom Bondies!

One of the reasons why I love baking and cooking is that it allows me to experiment with new flavors and create my own version of popular sweets. I may lack courage in some aspects of my life, but when it comes to the kitchen, I just love to play around with different flavors. After all, if the result is not what I wanted, I can start again.Brownies and blondies are 2 easy recipes that everyone can make whenever craving for something sweet. The base recipes call for only few ingredients and from there you can take the recipe the way you want by adding spices, fruits, nuts, chocolate chips or any other ingredients you could think of.

The blondies featured in this recipe combine between the sweetness of white chocolate and the tart flavor of the blueberries. These two ingredients alone would give you a wonderful flavor, however, I wanted to add a spice and I was not sure which one. I surely didn't want to use cinnamon as I have used quite a lot recently even if it would have been a great combination. Instead, I went with cardamom, a deeply aromatic spice with a citrusy character that goes well with the tartness of blueberries and complements it.

Though I had a feeling the combination of these three ingredients would work, but I wasn't sure as I had never tried it before. Now I am happy to say that the flavors are complementary, well balanced and utterly delicious. I couldn't have asked for more!

Once baked, the blondies had such an enticing aroma that I had to refrain myself from eating the whole batch before I finished photographing them.

And now let´s start with the recipe.For this recipe you need (18 x 18 cm pan):

100 g fresh (or frozen) blueberries

100 g butter

120 g flour

1/4 tsp of salt and another 1/4 tsp of baking soda

1 egg

100 brown sugar (for optimum results use dark brown sugar)

1/4 to 1/2 tsp ground cardamom (depends on how strong you want the flavor)

100 g white chocolate cut into small pieces

Start by combining the flour with the salt, cardamom and baking soda.

Melt the butter in a sauce pan; you want to melt the butter and not to heat it, just warm it through. Add the butter to the sugar and whisk until well combined.Now add the egg and mix well again.Slowly fold in the flour. Finally, mix in in the chocolate and the blueberries.

Pour the batter in a pan (previously lined with baking paper), and bake them in a preheated oven (180 C; 350 F) for about 20 to 25 min, or until the edges and the top have a golden brown color.

Let the pan cool down. Remove the blondie and then cut into squares or rectangles. Enjoy the tasty spicy, tart, and sweet little squares of decadent blondies with coffee or on their own.